Sunday, 4 October 2009
Moldavite
The full version of Moldavite, Volume One of my novel, can now be downloaded at Obooko. Just sign up and download as many ebooks as you want! Browse fiction and non-fiction categories in the left hand margin. Moldavite is listed under General Fiction and Poetry.
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
The Economy of Attention
A very interesting clip from bloggingheads tv here about autism and the "economy of attention". The economy of attention is understood here to mean an economy running parallel with the fiscal economy. Martin Cowen himself has cognitive characteristics associated with the autistic spectrum. He has some interesting things to say not only about what such "diagnoses" may mean, but also about the implications of certain cognitive traits for the way our culture of information functions. So his book is not only about autism and economies, it's also about stereotypes and diversity. Really thought-provoking.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Saturday, 8 August 2009
Through the Sonia Sotomayor Looking Glass
Matt Semino hits the nail on the head in his article about Sonia Sotomayor and the effect of race and gender issues on the judicial system. Western culture still has a long way to go before it reconciles itself to the dismantling of a male-white-dominated perspective in its key institutions. The important thing, however, is that the debate should be out in the open, and conducted with honesty.
Through the Sonia Sotomayor Looking Glass
These issues, and the denial, hypocrisy and cultural angst they have engendered, are woven into the fabric of our everyday life and institutions. Britain made a fortune out of the slave trade, and exported it to the United States, where it continued to live on despite, or perhaps even because of, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The man who wrote these words, some of the most inspiring in the English language, fathered children by a slave who was his wife's half sister. Thomas Jefferson. Over two hundred years later, a Michael Jackson or a Sonia Sotomayor still find that their faces don't fit, and Jefferson's own grave misgivings about where this institutionalized denial would lead have been proved more than justified.
Through the Sonia Sotomayor Looking Glass
These issues, and the denial, hypocrisy and cultural angst they have engendered, are woven into the fabric of our everyday life and institutions. Britain made a fortune out of the slave trade, and exported it to the United States, where it continued to live on despite, or perhaps even because of, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The man who wrote these words, some of the most inspiring in the English language, fathered children by a slave who was his wife's half sister. Thomas Jefferson. Over two hundred years later, a Michael Jackson or a Sonia Sotomayor still find that their faces don't fit, and Jefferson's own grave misgivings about where this institutionalized denial would lead have been proved more than justified.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
E-publishing: To E or not to E?
The new permutations of writing and publishing made possible by the internet are exciting, confusing and distracting all at the same time. Knowing what to invest time and energy in, and how, and above all why, calls for great creative self-confidence, skill and discipline on the part of writers. Some interesting perspectives on some of these issues can be found at Books Ahead.
The recently retired General Manager of Microsoft Prague, making a keynote speech at the school where I work, in my view made the point about technology and all forms of work:
Content is King! What applies to the world of education - where we have a tendency to forget that the effective classroom does not revolve around interactive white boards and other bells and whistles - applies to the world of words. It's so easy to get carried away with the buzz of communicating that we can neglect the art of good content.
How we express ourselves is also part of the message: the music industry, for example, has worked itself into a cleft stick of creative rigidity, devoid of experimentation with instruments and arrangements. Hey, I live in Moravia in the Czech Republic, where ethnic folk musicians are trained in classical music at conservatoires and think nothing of experimenting with jazz and other genres. This is high quality art that is alive!
The real creative potential of the internet for authors is the opportunity it provides to break free of rigid institutional hierarchies and inject something fresh, trenchant and playful into the world of letters, without the constraints imposed by having to reach a wide enough audience for commercial viability. Not that there's anything wrong with being commercially viable! It's just that the dog should be wagging the tail, not the other way round.
This is a cultural vicious circle that runs deep: once the tail starts wagging the dog, art becomes a production line trundling out what will sell. Tastes, in turn, are shaped by what makes it out of the culture factory, resulting in a culture of sound-bites, cliches and lowest common denominators. This state of affairs is not just artistically lamentable: it's positively dangerous. We are human: our wits have always been the only thing that stand between us and extinction. If we allow our wits to grow dull, we're finished.
The recently retired General Manager of Microsoft Prague, making a keynote speech at the school where I work, in my view made the point about technology and all forms of work:
Content is King! What applies to the world of education - where we have a tendency to forget that the effective classroom does not revolve around interactive white boards and other bells and whistles - applies to the world of words. It's so easy to get carried away with the buzz of communicating that we can neglect the art of good content.
How we express ourselves is also part of the message: the music industry, for example, has worked itself into a cleft stick of creative rigidity, devoid of experimentation with instruments and arrangements. Hey, I live in Moravia in the Czech Republic, where ethnic folk musicians are trained in classical music at conservatoires and think nothing of experimenting with jazz and other genres. This is high quality art that is alive!
The real creative potential of the internet for authors is the opportunity it provides to break free of rigid institutional hierarchies and inject something fresh, trenchant and playful into the world of letters, without the constraints imposed by having to reach a wide enough audience for commercial viability. Not that there's anything wrong with being commercially viable! It's just that the dog should be wagging the tail, not the other way round.
This is a cultural vicious circle that runs deep: once the tail starts wagging the dog, art becomes a production line trundling out what will sell. Tastes, in turn, are shaped by what makes it out of the culture factory, resulting in a culture of sound-bites, cliches and lowest common denominators. This state of affairs is not just artistically lamentable: it's positively dangerous. We are human: our wits have always been the only thing that stand between us and extinction. If we allow our wits to grow dull, we're finished.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Celebrate MJ's Birthday 29 August 2009
Click on the Youtube link below to see how MJ's birthday is going to be celebrated around the world on 29 August 2009:
See also MJ's charity foundation healtheworld
See also MJ's charity foundation healtheworld
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Not such a freak after all?
I am fascinated by mystical traditions and hidden schools, but I used to think these interests made me a bit of a freak! My novel Moldavite deals with these themes, among others. I am currently writing a novel about the discovery of hidden mystery traditions in Prague and the Middle East, going back to Egyptian star maps.
If you like this kind of thing as much as I do, check out the Tarcher Books (a favorite of mine for publishing my role-model Julia Cameron) Book of the Month by Graham Hancock: Occult America. This promises to be a fascinating read. Being a social scientist by training, it is my "tick" to look for the cultural connections here. John Dee lived in an age when arrant mumbo jumbo flourished side by side with extraordinary scientific discoveries and scholarship, sometimes in the same individual. Perhaps it is no accident that we are rediscovering these mysterious undertows in our own culture now? Happy reading!
And before I head off for beddy-byes, more tomorrow on the planned event for Michael Jackson's birthday on 29th August.
If you like this kind of thing as much as I do, check out the Tarcher Books (a favorite of mine for publishing my role-model Julia Cameron) Book of the Month by Graham Hancock: Occult America. This promises to be a fascinating read. Being a social scientist by training, it is my "tick" to look for the cultural connections here. John Dee lived in an age when arrant mumbo jumbo flourished side by side with extraordinary scientific discoveries and scholarship, sometimes in the same individual. Perhaps it is no accident that we are rediscovering these mysterious undertows in our own culture now? Happy reading!
And before I head off for beddy-byes, more tomorrow on the planned event for Michael Jackson's birthday on 29th August.
Michael Jackson the "Wounded Messenger"
Matt Semino's piece The Wounded Messenger
is the best review of Michael Jackson's life and work I have found. At last a review of his life and work that is worthy of the name. Matt Semino is an international corporate lawyer and legal commentator who advises clientele in the entertainment, media, fashion, real estate and private equity industries.
For those interested in a blow-by-blow comparison of the media distortion and mudslinging surrounding MJ, watch the TV program put together by Maury Povich using the footage that didn't appear in the infamous Martin Bashir documentary about MJ. Here is the first of a series of clips:
is the best review of Michael Jackson's life and work I have found. At last a review of his life and work that is worthy of the name. Matt Semino is an international corporate lawyer and legal commentator who advises clientele in the entertainment, media, fashion, real estate and private equity industries.
For those interested in a blow-by-blow comparison of the media distortion and mudslinging surrounding MJ, watch the TV program put together by Maury Povich using the footage that didn't appear in the infamous Martin Bashir documentary about MJ. Here is the first of a series of clips:
Friday, 31 July 2009
Michael Jackson and the Black Heart of Music
Even people who were not fans of Michael Jackson would have to concede that he was uniquely original and innovative, as a composer, a vocalist and as a dancer, not to mention his pioneering work in video clips. He sometimes kept us waiting a while for a new album, but the wait was always more than worth it. His was no cardboard cutout, formulaic musical entertainment for people with two brain cells or less. It was the real deal, on all levels and across several genres. Surely this is how he would want to be remembered.
Anyone who has ever striven for excellence in any field knows that once it is attained it becomes a double-edged sword. One of the first things it breeds is envy. The good is the enemy of the best, and mediocrity can be surprisingly vicious. MJ was not the lowest common denominator. He was the yardstick. The black yardstick.
Surely breaking the music industry records of such icons as Elvis and the Beatles makes MJ the best the industry ever had. But this is an industry that throughout its entire history has taken the best of black music – blues, jazz, R & B, soul, you name it - and rehashed it with white faces in front of it. Without black music, white music would be as dead from the neck down as it all too often is from the neck up. And then along comes Michael Jackson and reinvents all the categories and ups all the benchmarks. How very inconvenient.
The fact that this is nothing new does not make it any less true. The history of western culture is strewn with examples of black culture being bleached out of sight – going right back to black pharaohs of Egypt and the Sudan. Our cultural roots, black and white, lie there. Anything, if suppressed for long enough, will eventually turn into a monster. Here perhaps lies the key to the black heart of the music industry - and the demise of its king.
Anyone who has ever striven for excellence in any field knows that once it is attained it becomes a double-edged sword. One of the first things it breeds is envy. The good is the enemy of the best, and mediocrity can be surprisingly vicious. MJ was not the lowest common denominator. He was the yardstick. The black yardstick.
Surely breaking the music industry records of such icons as Elvis and the Beatles makes MJ the best the industry ever had. But this is an industry that throughout its entire history has taken the best of black music – blues, jazz, R & B, soul, you name it - and rehashed it with white faces in front of it. Without black music, white music would be as dead from the neck down as it all too often is from the neck up. And then along comes Michael Jackson and reinvents all the categories and ups all the benchmarks. How very inconvenient.
The fact that this is nothing new does not make it any less true. The history of western culture is strewn with examples of black culture being bleached out of sight – going right back to black pharaohs of Egypt and the Sudan. Our cultural roots, black and white, lie there. Anything, if suppressed for long enough, will eventually turn into a monster. Here perhaps lies the key to the black heart of the music industry - and the demise of its king.
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